Japan's Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi applauded Pakistan's efforts in the war against terrorism, but expressed concern to the Islamic nation's leader over nuclear proliferation, officials said.
Koizumi, who held private talks with Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf, also said Japan would resume loans to the South Asian country which were suspended after Islamabad's 1998 nuclear tests. The two governments also issued their first-ever joint declaration on bilateral cooperation after 53 years of diplomatic ties, pledging to deepen and widen relations.
Yesterday, Koizumi left Pakistan for Luxembourg for talks with EU officials. Koizumi, the first Japanese prime minister to visit Luxembourg, was expected assert that the proposed lifting of the EU arms embargo on China would affect the security balance in East Asia.
Before leaving Pakistan yesterday, Koizumi praised the country's efforts in the war on terror. But he also "expressed concern over the spillover of nuclear technology."
It was unclear if Musharraf offered Koizumi new information gleaned from the disgraced father of Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has confessed to supplying sensitive technology to countries including North Korea.
Koizumi said that he had told Musharraf that "Japan has been striving for elimination of nuclear weapons and for nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.
Japan -- the only country which has suffered nuclear attacks -- is a neighbor of North Korea and has been involved in six-nation talks, aimed at getting Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.
The joint statement between the two nations said Japan would extend new loans to Pakistan worth ?16,400 million (US$156.5 million), mostly for fixing a canal system in eastern Punjab Province.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen (高兟), famous for making provocative satirical sculptures of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), was tried on Monday over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs,” his wife and a rights group said. Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, said his wife, Zhao Yaliang (趙雅良), and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese Human Rights Defenders group which operates outside the nation. The closed-door, one-day trial took place at Sanhe City People’s Court in Hebei Province neighboring the capital, Beijing, and ended without a
RSS